IMO we'll never see 36 mil. returned. But we may see 18 mil., or whatever our current remaining balance is, returned.

I agree with that, and i think it would be an amicable compromise. Still, i'd love for the Giants to have to give up draft picks to the Redskins and Cowboys to punish Mara for being an a-hole.

I have to say, i think in some ways the penalties may have helped us in the long run, as it forced us to focus more on the draft. Perhaps we would have picked up an RB in free agency, and shanahan might not have drafted Morris, given that we already had Royster and Helu on the roster from the previous years draft. We certainly would have picked up a mediocre veteran QB, making it highly unlikely that we would have drafted Cousins.

Most of all, I think without the penatlies, we would have made a very strong push to sign Manning. And while Manning obviously would have been great for us for a couple years, it would mean that we either did not draft Griffin or, more stupidly, drafted him and kept him on the bench for a couple years.

I have to say, i think in some ways the penalties may have helped us in the long run, as it forced us to focus more on the draft. Perhaps we would have picked up an RB in free agency, and shanahan might not have drafted Morris, given that we already had Royster and Helu on the roster from the previous years draft. We certainly would have picked up a mediocre veteran QB, making it highly unlikely that we would have drafted Cousins.

I doubt that would be the case, Shanny loves to draft RB gems, not sign someone through FA. The only time I can remember Shanny signed someone to be starting RB was one time when Shanny was in Denver, I couldn't remember his name but the RB was supposed to fit in Shanny's offense well but he couldn't stay away from trouble. Other than that and Hightower (trade), Shanny always find RBs through draft.

While it's fun to talk about getting cap space back and/or punishing Mara and the Giants in some way, does anyone know if there's anything actually going on that would even address this issue with the NFL?

I think he means "if is willing to pursue the collusion case in the courts or not".

I guess I'm wondering if there's anything at all going on to try to recover at least the second installment of the cap penalty.

Whenever this subject comes up on other teams' message boards, there is an amazing apathy, or lack of understanding, about this issue. The consensus seems to be that Jerry and Dan (especially Dan) had this coming...

Have any of our cap gurus ever figured out what it would have cost us in cap space had we not written off the monster contracts during the "capless" year? That would at least enable us to net out the numbers to understand what the real cost of this nonsense was...